TAKE 291: 09-06-2005

SARAH PUCILL - STAGES OF MOURNING (16mm, 16 minutes)

"I ritualise through a performance to camera, the coming to terms with the loss of my late partner, Sandra Lahire. The hallucinatory power of the phantom of memory is set alongside the nature of photographic material to carry ghosts. The film re-stages past work; photographs of the filmmaker and the deceased are reenacted, and clips of film footage are projected on a bedroom wall and manipulated on a computer. Textures of the skin and voice of the deceased are infused with the pixelation and grain of photograph and moving image, so blurring boundaries between actual and representation, present and past, private and public."

NICKY MAGLIULO - 'RITUAL ABUSE IN LIPHOOK' AND OTHER NON-FICTIONS

1. Welcome To Godalming (miniDV, 1 minute, 50 seconds); 2. Ritual Abuse in Liphook (miniDV, 1 minute); 3. Death in Milford (miniDV, 1 minute)

Nicky Magliulo's gothic mini-series is set within a backdrop of suburban banality.

Referencing reality TV and documentary, the work employs a sexy, comic quality; however, the subject matter, tight camera angles and titles themselves hint at something altogether more sinister.

SUSAN ALDWORTH - TRANSITION: MATTER INTO IMAGINATION (DV, 4

Minutes)

In her first animated film, Aldworth collaborates with writer and neuropsychologist Dr. Paul Brooks, animator Michael Northeast, and sound artist Barney Quinton to give form to the consciousness that exists inside the brain which is not visualised using clinical imagery. An idea bursts through a monochrome brain scan like a flame, a voung girl accompanies a spinning 3-D image of Aldworth's brain with an aria from a Handel opera. The everyday stuff of living set against the mechanics of a rain.

KATHERINE A. BALSLEY - ALICE UNDERWATER (16mm, 1 minute 45 seconds)

"This film is based on footage that I found quite by accident at a yard sale. Upon viewing the film, I discovered that it was extraordinarily beautiful but also contained undeniably haunting qualities. Using the optical printer, I attempted to elaborate on the surreal and dreamlike qualities of the film, thus creating something entirely new through techniques such as multiple exposures, superimposition and manipulation of the speed. I also intended it the film to trigger a sense of voyeurism and claustrophobia as the swimmer is performing in an airless, underwater environment. All edits and effects were done entirely in camera.

TOBY TATUM - BETWEEN TWO MEN (Super 8mm, 8 minutes)

An old man is unsettled by the re-emergence of an obscure figure from the past whose unwelcome appearance triggers memories of espionage and sudden violence. Toby Tatum's film Between Two Men explores his relationship to his father - examining an image complicated by layers of fiction and accumulated mysteries.

JEAN-GABRIEL PERIOT - DIES IRAE (miniDV, 10 minutes)

Remember

That I am the cause of your journey

Don't leave me on that wave

ELLIE REES - SHE (miniDV, 5 minutes)

Pain and humour combined via elastic band-based transformation.

ZORAN DRAGELJ - MEMORIES OF SIMULACRA (16mm, 2 minutes 30 seconds)

A two and a half minute visual painting and toning film that turns the filmmaker's manipulation of film stock into a progression of lines. shapes and explosions of colour. Done in two stages - first, exposing and overexposing film stock with a number of inspirational sources. Second. the cameraless process of creating the visuals by dyeing the exposed stock into a colour dye bath, creating raw and brash colours.

CHARLOTTE GINSBORG - SEETHA & LAMBERTO (miniDV, 19 minutes)

'Seetha & Lamberto' presents still images and documentary-style DV footage in order to weave together the lives of two characters that are afflicted by gephryophobia, a fear of crossing bridges. The film follows a hotel concierge, captured in the non-space of international travel, in his attempts to find a cure for his condition. The ordering o the images and the way in which the documentary footage is manipulated aim to unsettle the viewer, raising questions as to the authenticity of the story that is being told.

JOHN WILD - TUBE TRAIN TRAPEZE (mpog4, 45 seconds)

45 second films showing rare footage of Kt Byrne, the notorious tube train trapeze artist, before her permanent departure from the UK to live in Europe. John shot on mpeg4 to give a sense o the spontaneity and subversive quality o the actual performances.

ZEV ROBINSON - EVERYTHING IS ART (miniDV, 2 minutes)

Based on Andy Warhol's statement that 'everything is art'. Zev Robinson's videos explore the relationship between image and sound, with music by leading experimental music composers/performers. Broken and disiunctured narratives are created b free association and the repetition of imagery, using the music as a structural base.

SANDRA LAHIRE - NIGHT DANCES (16mm, 17 minutes, 1995)

"Night Dances is for my mother, who died whilst helping me to make this piano musical. The Dance of Death is bound to life - Lechaim - as we whirl together by Hebrew gravestones. A dreaming woman is ferried through our decaying city. This is the age of the Personal Computer - the Private Catacomb for the switched-on elite. Its dark doorways are for the wandering homeless... true survivors.”

Take 291 is curated by Charlie Phillips for 291 Gallery